Thursday, June 29, 2006
Beach, $830, Seattle
I just got back from Seattle with Myia. We went to the Space Needle in the afternoon, had dinner at the revolving restaurant that night, and stayed at a 4 star hotel. The next day we went to a small amusement/water park and on our way home, stopped by Western Washington University to say hi to one of Myia's University of British Columbia friends, Ross.
The trip from Vancouver to Seattle wasn't bad at all, taking only 3 hours. It was fun to see a national landmark and one of the seven wonders of the world. It was built for the World's Fair in 1962. I don't understand why they don't have World's Fairs anymore, it seems like it would be a fun thing to go to. The restaurant is high class, with all entres being $35+. It was well worth it however, being 550+ feet in the air and spinning 360 degrees in roughly 47 minutes, not to mention the food was amazing.
Other than the trip, all we've done is gone to Kitsilano Beach once where I got ridiculously burned to the point where Myia's mom bought a special aloe spray for me. Also an interesting fact about beaches in British Columbia and maybe elsewhere is that they have huge logs lying all over to sit on or lie down by to pretect yourself from the wind for example.
I squeezed in one poker session before going to Seattle and it was one of the most memorable ones of the summer. It's going to be hard for me to provide justice to how funny and interesting the session was, but I'll try. Picture a man over 70 years old that loves to drink beer, can't hear what the dealer tells him, has to check his cards every five seconds, and has to squint his eyes to try to see everytime a new card is revealed. Now imagine he is quite possibly the worst poker player with no understanding of what he is even doing. Immediately upon playing a few hands with him I noticed that he didn't fold preflop when he raised, and he raised 80 percent of the time he was first into the pot with any two cards having any relation to themselves (97 Q5s). And once he had raised a pot he did not like to fold to any reraise. So I sat there for 45 minutes getting dealt complete trash and waiting for a hand to play against the old man who had rivered 4 straight people with outs ranging from 9 to 2 and build his stack to $600+. Well my first hand came when I had AhQc and the man raised it to his normal $12 from 2 off the button. Having seen him call and all in of $150+ with Q10, I happily pushed all in hoping for a similar call. Well I got it and was up against Ad4c and after the turn the board read 9d 10c 9c Kc, leaving him the 4s and the 4d for a $450 pot, and off rolls the 4s. Not to be discouraged, I acted like an experienced player, smiled, and through my hand in the muck.
After a few hands with other players and a few positive pots from the old man, I had $380 in front of me. With 6 limpers in front of me I looked down in the big blind to KK. Immediately, I began to think of how I can isolate the old man and drive the other 5 limpers out. I chose the correct raise for the situation and make it $30 to go. Normally I'd make it a little less to guarantee a caller but I knew since the old man had already limped in that he was going to call and the other tighter players would drop. With $70 in the pot we went to the flop of Kh 10c 7h. Now I had seen this man call double pot size bets with hands such as 95 on a 10 4 6 board hoping for a running straight. Knowing I had two of the kings, I bet out $100 hoping he'd go with a heart draw JQ, 89, 10X, etc. Then I watched the man do the most beautiful thing ever, he'd look back at his cards, look at his chips, look at the dealer, stick his arm out into the middle of the table, point at a player and say "whatever he's got" or in other words all in. I made the fastest call of my life, flipped over my two kings and prayed for the board to pair. Sorry for the lack of drama, but off rolled the 7s. It turned out the old man had his first real hand of the night K10, but it was no good. The dealer spent the next 30 seconds taking stacks of red chips from the old man's chips stack and eventually pushed me an $830 pot. This was the biggest pot I've played in my life against a player I wanted to beat more than anything. Being the "professional" however, I simply gave it a quite fist pump and consoled the man about how unlucky he had gotten as I still wanted the remaining $300+ he had in front of him.
The old man finished off his night 8+ beers later calling off $300+ on the river to an all in bet against him with K3 on a 9 4 3 8 A board. His opponent turned over 2 5 for the nuts. The old man then had to be escorted out of the casino as he was visibly upset, drunk, and trying to get in an altercation with the guy that won. We think that he thought there's some way of bluffing when he called the bet but didn't realize he was just calling off all his money.
I finished the night at $905, plus $490 in 3.5 hours.
Total Profit: $3055
Total Hours: 87.5
Hourly Wage: $34.91
Beach pictures:
logs lying all over the beach
Myia and me
Seattle pictures:
I thought the base of this building was amazing
the Space Needle
Us at the top of the Space Needle
the skyline from the top of the Needle
Us at dinner at the revolving restaurant
our dessert, the Lunar Orbiter, and original from the World's Fair
a caricature of us at the Space Needle, I don't think it looks that much like me
The trip from Vancouver to Seattle wasn't bad at all, taking only 3 hours. It was fun to see a national landmark and one of the seven wonders of the world. It was built for the World's Fair in 1962. I don't understand why they don't have World's Fairs anymore, it seems like it would be a fun thing to go to. The restaurant is high class, with all entres being $35+. It was well worth it however, being 550+ feet in the air and spinning 360 degrees in roughly 47 minutes, not to mention the food was amazing.
Other than the trip, all we've done is gone to Kitsilano Beach once where I got ridiculously burned to the point where Myia's mom bought a special aloe spray for me. Also an interesting fact about beaches in British Columbia and maybe elsewhere is that they have huge logs lying all over to sit on or lie down by to pretect yourself from the wind for example.
I squeezed in one poker session before going to Seattle and it was one of the most memorable ones of the summer. It's going to be hard for me to provide justice to how funny and interesting the session was, but I'll try. Picture a man over 70 years old that loves to drink beer, can't hear what the dealer tells him, has to check his cards every five seconds, and has to squint his eyes to try to see everytime a new card is revealed. Now imagine he is quite possibly the worst poker player with no understanding of what he is even doing. Immediately upon playing a few hands with him I noticed that he didn't fold preflop when he raised, and he raised 80 percent of the time he was first into the pot with any two cards having any relation to themselves (97 Q5s). And once he had raised a pot he did not like to fold to any reraise. So I sat there for 45 minutes getting dealt complete trash and waiting for a hand to play against the old man who had rivered 4 straight people with outs ranging from 9 to 2 and build his stack to $600+. Well my first hand came when I had AhQc and the man raised it to his normal $12 from 2 off the button. Having seen him call and all in of $150+ with Q10, I happily pushed all in hoping for a similar call. Well I got it and was up against Ad4c and after the turn the board read 9d 10c 9c Kc, leaving him the 4s and the 4d for a $450 pot, and off rolls the 4s. Not to be discouraged, I acted like an experienced player, smiled, and through my hand in the muck.
After a few hands with other players and a few positive pots from the old man, I had $380 in front of me. With 6 limpers in front of me I looked down in the big blind to KK. Immediately, I began to think of how I can isolate the old man and drive the other 5 limpers out. I chose the correct raise for the situation and make it $30 to go. Normally I'd make it a little less to guarantee a caller but I knew since the old man had already limped in that he was going to call and the other tighter players would drop. With $70 in the pot we went to the flop of Kh 10c 7h. Now I had seen this man call double pot size bets with hands such as 95 on a 10 4 6 board hoping for a running straight. Knowing I had two of the kings, I bet out $100 hoping he'd go with a heart draw JQ, 89, 10X, etc. Then I watched the man do the most beautiful thing ever, he'd look back at his cards, look at his chips, look at the dealer, stick his arm out into the middle of the table, point at a player and say "whatever he's got" or in other words all in. I made the fastest call of my life, flipped over my two kings and prayed for the board to pair. Sorry for the lack of drama, but off rolled the 7s. It turned out the old man had his first real hand of the night K10, but it was no good. The dealer spent the next 30 seconds taking stacks of red chips from the old man's chips stack and eventually pushed me an $830 pot. This was the biggest pot I've played in my life against a player I wanted to beat more than anything. Being the "professional" however, I simply gave it a quite fist pump and consoled the man about how unlucky he had gotten as I still wanted the remaining $300+ he had in front of him.
The old man finished off his night 8+ beers later calling off $300+ on the river to an all in bet against him with K3 on a 9 4 3 8 A board. His opponent turned over 2 5 for the nuts. The old man then had to be escorted out of the casino as he was visibly upset, drunk, and trying to get in an altercation with the guy that won. We think that he thought there's some way of bluffing when he called the bet but didn't realize he was just calling off all his money.
I finished the night at $905, plus $490 in 3.5 hours.
Total Profit: $3055
Total Hours: 87.5
Hourly Wage: $34.91
Beach pictures:
Seattle pictures:
